A team of law firms will hold nearly two dozen informational meetings throughout the country over the next few months to help black farmers learn how to file a claim as part of a $1.2 billion discrimination settlement.

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Nearly 20,000 black farmers in Mississippi could file claims in this second round, according to the National Black Farmers Association. About 2,300 more claims could come from farmers in Louisiana as well as about 15,000 in Alabama.

The maximum payment per claim could be up to $50,000, but that will depend on the number of successful claimants, said Greg Francis, a lead co-counsel on the case.

That money will represent “only a small token” of what some black farmers lost, said Oak Grove resident James Burrell, vice president of Black Farmers and Landowners of Louisiana. “I know a lot of farmers who lost their place, their everything.”

Macie Donaldson, of Aberdeen, Miss., is anxious to learn if she’ll be among the thousands of black farmers sharing in the settlement. “I think they owe it to me, the way they did us. I wish they would hurry up because, at 80 years old, you don’t know how long you’re going to be here.”

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A federal judge gave final approval to the settlement last month, moving black farmers a step closer to receiving payments, possibly as early as fall 2012.

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Congress approved the $1.2 billion last year in what has become known as “the Pigford case.” Tens of thousands of black farmers said they were denied loans and other assistance by federal agriculture officials for racial reasons.

The settlement marks the second round of payments for black farmers. Thousands received payments as part of a 1999 class-action settlement in the case. The second round will pay farmers who missed the first filing deadline. Claim forms must be postmarked no later than May 11.

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white is right, black is whack

Right, and there aren’t white farmers who haven’t lost their farms? Further proof the ‘civil rights movement’ was nothing but a way for blacks to get free money and get away with bad behavior.

sbuffalonative

That money will represent “only a small token” of what some black farmers lost, said Oak Grove resident James Burrell, vice president of Black Farmers and Landowners of Louisiana. “I know a lot of farmers who lost their place, their everything.”

Let these black farmers who allegedly lost everything provide the documentation.

“Only a small token”. Something tells me this settlement hasn’t settled anything. If this $1.2 billion is only a ‘small token’, how much will be enough?

boogie

While I still farm as my Father and Grandfathers,I do not know of any Black Farmers in my area.The only one I can remember is the one that started a pig farm with SBA loan.Guess where it went,belly up in just a few years.Did he pay back those loans,I doubt,will he get some of the free money now?You as I know he probably will.This all down hill spiral came in the 60’s and if it does not turn around in 2012,buy up food and bullets,civil war is to close to not prepare.

Mr.White

“Nearly 20,000 black farmers in Mississippi could file claims in this second round, according to the National Black Farmers Association. About 2,300 more claims could come from farmers in Louisiana as well as about 15,000 in Alabama.”

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I am having a difficult time with the number of “black farmers” being kicked around here. How many black farmers are there in the state of Mississippi? 20,000? Which leads to my next question…what is the definition of a “black farmer,” insofar as being a claimant is concerned? I become more than a little skeptical when we have lawyers, blacks and taxpayer money involved.

Mr.White

“Macie Donaldson, of Aberdeen, Miss., is anxious to learn if she’ll be among the thousands of black farmers sharing in the settlement. “I think they owe it to me, the way they did us. I wish they would hurry up because, at 80 years old, you don’t know how long you’re going to be here.”

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I wonder exactly how much “farming” an 80 year old is doing?

rockman

I thought they had settled twice already and that this was the third round of kissy kissy

Anonymous

For non-Europeans, all that money is wasted because they will just adapt (i.e. consume more and work less). Think of what useful things we could do with all these billions.

Keep in mind, some black farmers actually were farmers and were cheated. I imagine some marginal white farmers were cheated by the same methods. If compensation is owed, all should get it.

Jack Krak

Sounds like a black “farmer” can get by with just suing the government & not doing much actual farming. By the way, am I supposed to believe that there are around 40,000 black farmers in just three states? Really? I suspect that the government has made the definition of “farmer” so broad as to include people who once drove past a hayfield or can spell “tractor”.

R CROSS

Money for nothing,and it all started with an apology!

Anonymous

Congress approved the $1.2 billion last year in what has become known as “the Pigford case.” Tens of thousands of black farmers said they were denied loans and other assistance by federal agriculture officials for racial reasons.

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When will the insanity stop? When will our race wake up and demand that blacks get not one more dime for ANYTHING from us? If this doesn’t wake up Whites in this country as to how anti-White our own government and courts are, then I give up.

I will wager many poor Whites who had REAL farms did not get loans either!

Could it possibly be that the banks KNEW the blacks would be credit risks and that most are frauds who never even had what constitutes a “farm”? Maybe had a couple of peach trees in the back yard? Just how many of these blacks today who filed, ever had any sort of what constitutes a real farm?

This is just another give away of Whitey’s tax dollars so blacks can bleed us dry as they do with everything we have. It’s not enough that blacks have siphoned TRILLIONS off us just since the Civil Rights Act? Why do we stand for this?

Banks back then weren’t forced by our government to give to blacks who were credit risks and had little income like they did with the sham of these sub prime loans that caused the mess we are in today with the housing fiasco?

rjp

Macie Donaldson, of Aberdeen, Miss., is anxious to learn if she’ll be among the thousands of black farmers sharing in the settlement. “I think they owe it to me, the way they did us. I wish they would hurry up because, at 80 years old, you don’t know how long you’re going to be here.”

Owe it?

Do you expect me to believe that at some point after this womans’s 50th birthday she was going to farm the land?

And hurry up with that money, she doesn’t have much time to make it rain.

—- When is someone going to sue blacks for theft from the destruction of property values? —-

john

While I don’t doubt that there might be black farmers in the Deep South, I’ve hunted a great many farms in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland and I’ve never encountered a single black farmer.

I can’t help but suspect that the numbers of black farmers in the entire US is wildly exaggerated and that no census of them has ever been accurately conducted.

Up to my neck in CA.

“I think they owe it to me, the way they did us.”

Macie just who is “they”. I never owned slaves.

I’ll bet I did more good and more hard work my 43 years on this planet then all of your whole 80 years. Nobody owes anybody anyhting in life. Time to ween them!

Anonymous

When I was in second grade, my grandmother gave me a fluffy little yellow chick for Easter. I fed it and watered it and built it a little coop. It grew up and late that summer a fox got it. That experience makes me a farmer, and I didn’t get any “gummint” money. Oh, wait a minute–I’m white…

CHAS

This is the biggest reparations/scam to come down since AA & welfare! This is the 2nd pay-out. Search “Pigford Settlement” & be prepared to be mad.The 1st pay-out was to 90.000 blacks @ 50 grand a person. From a period in time when there only 36.000 black owned farms in the USA. Big Government website has complete history on the whole farce- this was Obama’s pet cause before he became POTUS.

Anonymous

U.S. census of black farmers in 2007 totalled 41,024///IN 2002 the total was 37,791. Are the people making claims under the Pigford case required to produce any proof whatsoever?? I agree with an earlier poster that trillions of dollars have been paid out to blacks since the Johnson administration and the end is nowhere in sight.

Moss

I live in a number one farm rated state and I farm.

I have never met in 50 years, ANY black FARMERS, unless you count growing weed as a farm product?

Anonymous

This blatant scam makes me so angry, my real thoughts would never get published on this site or any other. All that money for what? And there’s not one politician with the guts to stand up and say something. Pathetic.